248: Interview with Jeramy LeCompte and Daniel Allen of FLEXdesk by Rooted Consulting

Topics:

We have the great pleasure of having not one, but two guests on this week.  Jeramy LeCompte and Daniel Allen of Rooted Consulting join us to talk about their outsourced help desk service, FLEXdesk.

Jeramy lecompte

daniel allen

FLEXdesk is a flexible, outsourced HelpDesk service that allows you to quickly and easily scale your business with a highly qualified and experienced team without adding the expenses associated with traditional employees. This allows you to focus on customer support and gives you peace of mind to provide a great customer experience.

-Daniel answers some questions regarding minimum requirements and overall logistics of onboarding new clients

-Jeramy also talks about providing tier 1 and tier 2 support for their customers as well as offering tier 3 when necessary.

-Everyone on the FLEXdesk team has obtained at least Apple Certified Support Professional status

-They discuss the challenges that all teams face when dealing with a new end user that may be unfamiliar with the personnel

-Documentation is key and makes the handoff seamless to the FLEXdesk team

-Some benefits of FLEXdesk:
    -Allows you to free up time to focus on building your business
    -Takes out the need to hire a full time employee
    -Reduces costs in training and on-boarding 

-Scheduling and prioritizing is a critical aspect of how they operate

-Looking to get started?  Email support@rootedconsulting.org to reach out to a member of the team.  Or visit www.rootedconsulting.org/flexdesk

247: Interview with Michael Thomsen, Director, Origin84

- Michael Thomsen, Director at Origin84, Proactive Support Professional, Sydney, Australia
Origin84 is an Apple-focussed technology consultancy based in Surry Hills, NSW.

Michael has spent over ten years of working professionally alongside the sales and service branches of Apple Australia. He has gained a deep understanding of the complexities and uniqueness of selling and supporting Apple branded equipment. 

After 8 years of independent consulting he founded Origin84 in 2015 to meet the opening in the Australian market for a mid size Apple focussed support and management consultancy. Over the past 12 months Origin84 has grown to be a premiere supplier of premium professional services in Australia to the advertising, marketing and banking sectors - or any company who rely on Macs to make their living. Origin84 has also been specifically sought out to work with a number of international and multinational clientele.

Topics:

-Joe remembers the kind gift that Michael gave us during the live ACEs show last year

-Home users are not part of Origin 84's business focus

-Requirements for ACNs outside of the US are different and some of those details come in to focus

-Australia has a small market and is heavily regulated and Michael gives us his thoughts and process

-Michael changed his model from ordering application licenses to having the client purchase, thereby adjusting risk/reward ratio.  It also empowers the client as opposed to you holding all the keys and a false sense of job security.

-As Jerry comments on Michael’s keen business acumen, he talks about his influences

-An interesting discussion brews about putting profit first, then factor in all of your costs

-Sound advice about considering margins in your timing to allow for less stress on your team to get the job done right instead of worrying about the clock
Shaun Blanc - https://shawnblanc.net/margin/

-“I don’t like apologizing”.  Michael goes on to talk about not making mistakes, and that’s where time comes in as a benefit for your engineers as well as the clients.

-Joe brings up the origin of the Origin 84 name (here’s a hint, the year 1984 plays a role)

-A deeper dive about the ACN program not only outside of the United States, but what the ACN of the future will look like.

- "Whip-smart ideas and advice for businesses who earn a living with their Macs."
         -Michael Thomsen

Origin Eighty-Four PTY Limited
1 Ann Street, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW, 2010
Call: 1300 800 936

Here is an example of Origin84's unique vision of working with their customers

246: Let Go Of My Echo or Echo Location

Topics:

Will you be at ACEs 2018? Join us there & catch a live show!
Register Here:
https://acesconf.com/ccp

-Joe has some follow up on the Gmail Bcc mystery

-A talk about the latest ACN announcements, including the ACN Roadshow.  Joe will be attending in NYC on March 13th and Sam will be in Santa Monica on February 21st.

-Jerry has a very odd story about ordering an Echo for a customer via his Amazon account

-A macOS Server PSA from Joe - Apple Support article about changes coming in macOS Server

-Sam hasn't had a lot of affection for Airport Extremes but this latest issue with firewall settings and port forwarding not working doesn't give him the warm & fuzzies

-Jerry has an issue with a possibly bad Samsung Evo 850 and ends up replacing it within another with success
Etrecheck.com is a handy tool he has used to detect software & hardware problems on Macs

-Have you heard Jerry mention Occam's Razor on show's past.  Curious as to what the reference is?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

-220/221 Volts Whatever it takes? - YouTube (Mr. Mom reference!)

-Joe attempts a pop quiz about Photos and the All Photos vs Photos view

-Sam has to secretly Google "how to pair Air Pods" while at a client

-While Jerry is on-site to work on a Synology, he is asked to assist with a problem iMac.  As it turned out, he was sending them Watchman alerts all along about a drive failure.

-Joe has some follow up on MacBook Pro uptime; MacBook Pro with slow wake from sleep after closing lid? Try restarting! Slow changing network interfaces? Try restarting!

-Encryption a Fusion drive with FileVault was proving to be a long and arduous process for Jerry.  Only periodically moving the mouse would force it to progress again.  Jerry found a free app called "Jiggler" to keep the mouse active periodically. 
http://www.sticksoftware.com/software/Jiggler.html
To see the status of the encryption process, he used this command:
diskutil cs list | grep “Conversion Progress” 

233: If I Could Turn Back Time

November 7, 2017

TOPICS:

- Sometimes sharing music in Apple Music using Messages doesn't work. Workaround: use "Copy" or maybe AirDrop works

- Discussion surrounding Apple Music, iTunes Match and streaming music.

- SpaceX lands rocket at sea, makes history - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEr9cPpuAx8

- followup on Joe's migration to G Suite: I've stopped seeing progress bars and large numbers counting up and down in my sleep, and I've stopped having nightmares about drag and drop targets
SHARED CONTACTS FOR GMAIL - https://www.gmailsharedcontacts.com

 when cleaning up old mail using your IMAP client with Gmail:

1) "When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted": change to "Auto-Expunge off - Wait for the client to update the server."

2) When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder: change to "Move the message to the Trash"

3) Under the Labels section, remove the check mark next to All Mail and Important so that those labels will not show in IMAP

- Sam tells about a client sending out bulk emails and wishing to set up their own email server.

- Joe Share his thoughts on his new iPhone X

- Sam shares a story about declining service to a potential problem client.

- Joe shares a story about helping a client hide selfie photos
ImageOptim makes images load faster - https://imageoptim.com/mac

- We'd like to thank all of our Patreon sponsors for their tremendous support of Command Control Power. You really help make the show possible. We've talked about burnout recently... This show has been a labor of love, and your support sends a signal that you appreciate what we're doing so it really helps encourage us to keep doing it and putting out a show every single week. We've released over 232 episodes over the course of the last four years! We really appreciate all 40 of our patrons. For this monthly live episode, we'd like to specifically thank those patrons that pledge at a certain level. You truly make the show possible and we really appreciate it.

-A big thank you to all of our Patreon sponsors!

230: Addigy Update - Jason Dettbarn / Founder & CEO of Addigy - Cloud Based Mac Management Platform

CCP proudly welcomes back Jason Dettbarn, founder & CEO of Addigy, a Cloud Based Mac Management Platform.  Addigy simplifies and streamlines the IT management of your Macs by providing a comprehensive approach to security & management for macOS.

Jason, discuses recent updates to Addigy and exciting new feature releases. In addition, discussion about Apple's new APFS and how it will affect the Addigy MSP platform in the future.

Jason also discusses the recent KRACK, the recent WPA2 vulnerability. Read Jason's Blog post here: https://www.addigy.com/top-3-things-about-krack-vulnerability

Sign up for a free trial with Addigy: https://www.addigy.com/ccp

229: Interview wIth Taylor Boyko of SimpleMDM

October 10, 2017

TOPICS:

INTERVIEW:

SimpleMDM is the Apple iOS and macOS device manager that you've been waiting for. With modern, intuitive functionality, SimpleMDM gives you access to a cloud-hosted platform with advanced functionality usually reserved for convoluted enterprise suites. For instance, macOS native package installation, allowing you to install management tools like Chef, Munki or Puppet without having to install a cumbersome agent first. SimpleMDM provides additional features like location tracking, filevault key escrow, and support for multiple VPP and DEP accounts for integration into your zero-touch deployment workflow.

SimpleMDM sports a robust API, multiple admin users, 2-factor authentication and SAML support to integrate seamlessly with your admin environment.

Start your 30-day free trial today at SimpleMDM and have access to their US-based engineering team without having to deal with an aggressive sales team. Priced simply, with volume discounts, SimpleMDM won't require advanced math to calculate your annual spend. You can sign up to at simplemdm.com/ccp, and be sure to join #simplemdm in the Mac Admins Slack.

https://simplemdm.com/ccp

FOLLOWUP: 

•  Jerry provides some feedback to Sam and Joe regarding last weeks show about "burnout"

• Joe discusses some updates with removing the contents of the /private/var/folders/

• Think twice before encrypting your HFS+ volumes on High Sierra – Bombich

• Discussion regarding some limitations of the Apple Series 3 Watch when the iPhone is offline
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205547
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205783
  "To receive SMS, MMS, or push notifications from third-party apps on your Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular), your paired iPhone must be powered on and connected to Wi-Fi or cellular, but it doesn't need to be nearby."